It is now common practice for people to have a multiplicity of communication devices used for interaction with each other. Initially, such devices provided voice communication tied to specific locations over analog lines. Now voice, as well as data, is communicated in digital format over sophisticated data packet networks. Some of these data packet networks operate wirelessly, allowing a user to send and receive voice or data packets from any physical location in the network. Thus, a user having some type of system (such as a cell phone, computer, or the like) can make contact through an electronic network with a target user's electronic system with the intent to transfer information between the systems.
In some situations this information transfer is as simple as a voice communication between the calling user and the target user using a cell phone. In other situations the calling user (or a system under the control of a calling user) may wish to obtain information from a database of another user. An example of such usage would be by using a browser on the Internet to search for, and download, data from a remote source.
Often in these types of electronic communications, the user and/or the target may travel from one location to another (such as from home to office). Sometimes the calling party will terminate the connection in order to employ a different network in a certain location, either as a function of convenience, economy or network availability. Thus, the party would terminate the connection on one network and, after a brief delay, create a new connection between the same parties using a separate network. Likewise, a target party could be traveling while connected and may also require the use of a different network during said travel.
As described above, connections between the parties are specific to the networks used by the parties when the connection is initiated, requiring termination of the existing connection before recreating that connection on a different network. However, as communication becomes more ubiquitous, and devices more numerous, it would be desirable for connections to move seamlessly from network to network while traveling (from landline home phone to cell phone to cellular car phone, for example) and presently, except for the ability to move between individual cells of a cellular network, this ability to move seamlessly between different networks is lacking.